Why use food additives?
2022-01-12
People in the food industry often say: Food Additives are the soul of the food industry. Why do you say this? Because the role of food additives in food processing is so important. But someone asked, why do you have to add something to the good "food"? In fact, without food additives, many of the good things we love to eat will become completely awkward! For example, without emulsifiers and thickeners, soft waxy and lubricated ice cream will be like hard ice cubes. Same! Thanks to antioxidants, cooking oil doesn`t have to worry about buying it back and letting it go for a few days. In food processing, there are four main purposes for using food additives: 1. In order to maintain or improve the nutritional value of food, such as vitamin C in concentrated fruit juice; 2. Improve the quality of food, such as antioxidants. With them, the cooking oil at home doesn't have to worry too much about it becoming hala after a few days; 3. Improve the sensory properties of food, such as emulsifiers and thickeners in ice cream. Without them, ice cream is just like ice cubes; 4. It is convenient for the production and circulation of food. You see, the canned food can only go around the earth with preservatives and it will not be damaged. Now we can buy all kinds of food in the supermarket every day, and we never worry about having nothing to eat. But, did you know? This is largely due to food additives. At present, there are about 2,000 food additives approved for use in my country, which are divided into more than 20 categories according to their functions. The familiar ones are preservatives, antioxidants, leavening agents, flavors (flavors), colorants (colors), etc. Familiar with processing aids, gum-based candy base substances, etc. But Mr. Min wants to introduce a special one here, that is, "nutrition fortifier". The role of nutritional fortifiers is to increase the nutritional value of food. A simple example: the multi-vitamins and minerals added to infant formula milk powder are nutritional fortifiers, which can meet the needs of the baby's healthy growth. Since nutritional supplements are very special, they have now been separated from "food additives" and managed separately. In addition, when it comes to food additives, many people think that they are synthetic things. In fact, it is not. Among the more than 2,000 food additives approved for use in my country, there are also many natural substances, such as lycopene as a coloring agent, perlite as a filter aid, and lavender essential oil. How does it sound? Is it very tall? But there are still people who don`t worry--I don`t eat processed foods, can I cook them all at home? "Coagulants" are used to make tofu at home, whether it is gypsum or brine, they are all food additives. Baking soda is used to make steamed buns, and alum is used in traditional fried dough sticks. These are also food additives. When you reject all food additives, you basically reject modern "food." It is hard to evolve to the top of the food chain and live in the 21st century with advanced technology.
